If I was World Rugby I would start i.e. to make sure, that you actually can see some rugby on free tv in everyone of this nations.The situation in Germany after the quite successful world cup.

Rugby on free tv in Germany = 0 (apart from a 45-minute-highlight-show of the German-Spain/Portugal matches paid for by the German sponsor)Rugby on pay tv in Germany = 0

Six nations was viewable via a stream on a german internet sports site. The other rights are obviously purchased by "perform group", but they don't use them .WorldRugby needs to make sure, that rugby is shown on television to grow attendance numbers.Apart from that I honestly don't know what i.e. RugbyEurope could do.

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

RugbyLiebe, those are some interesting numbers but its not fair to get too focused on the rates as opposed to the absolute attendance, since what we really care about (or are talking about) is the ability to generate more revenue and justify some comparison with 6N.

Georgia only grew 25% but that was an additional ~2,800 attendees per match. The remainder grew 89%, but only added ~1,100 per match. So you can say Georgia had a lower growth rate, but they would have generated 3 times as much additional revenue as other countries (just assuming identical ticket prices...for this hypothetical). And still whats most impressive is that Romania test attendance number.

Either way, it would be great to see more tests for Geogia against Tier 1 and high Tier 2 opponents to solidify that kind of attendance and make it harder to argue against their inclusion in things like 6N or even just getting summer/fall tours from T1 opponents.

Suiram wrote:RugbyLiebe, those are some interesting numbers but its not fair to get too focused on the rates as opposed to the absolute attendance, since what we really care about (or are talking about) is the ability to generate more revenue and justify some comparison with 6N.

Georgia only grew 25% but that was an additional ~2,800 attendees per match. The remainder grew 89%, but only added ~1,100 per match. So you can say Georgia had a lower growth rate, but they would have generated 3 times as much additional revenue as other countries (just assuming identical ticket prices...for this hypothetical). And still whats most impressive is that Romania test attendance number.

Either way, it would be great to see more tests for Geogia against Tier 1 and high Tier 2 opponents to solidify that kind of attendance and make it harder to argue against their inclusion in things like 6N or even just getting summer/fall tours from T1 opponents.

Hence what I actually wrote

RugbyLiebe wrote:Both Russia and Germany come from really low numbers, while the Spanish and the Georgian numbers are probably still the most impressive.

I do doubt the revenue though, as the ticket revenue in Georgia might not be that far away from the one in Spain (15€ per ticket) or even Germany (19€ per ticket).But good point. What was the ticket price for the Georgia games?

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

RugbyLiebe wrote:As the 6 Nations is the sport event with the highest average attendance worldwide of any sport events whether league or national teams or anything (68,968 in 2016)

I think this might be only if you exclude one-off "events" like the Superbowl, but it's certainly routinely the highest average attendance for a competition between national teams (although the 1994 football world cup averaged 69k per game; most football WCs average about 40k though).

Apparently 2016 was the only year which was under the FIFA WC 94 figures. Normally it is just over 69k. But we are talking about 30 to 40 people difference.The Superbowl is part of the NFL season. The average attendance of the 2015 season was 68.216.

RugbyLiebe wrote:Apparently 2016 was the only year which was under the FIFA WC 94 figures. Normally it is just over 69k. But we are talking about 30 to 40 people difference.The Superbowl is part of the NFL season. The average attendance of the 2015 season was 68.216.

I reckon my English is just too rusty.I wrote the same thing, but from the opposite point of view.2016 actually was the only year to be lower than the soccer world cup record year 1994, while normally the 6 Nations have attendances over 69k (which gets them even over the FIFAWC record year).

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

Coloradoan wrote:The SEC in American college football averaged 78,720 fans per game last year, including 3 teams with over 100k average attendance and another 3 over 90k.

Interesting. What is a SEC? A part of a college football league? Do you have a source for this claim?

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

Coloradoan wrote:The SEC in American college football averaged 78,720 fans per game last year, including 3 teams with over 100k average attendance and another 3 over 90k.

Interesting. What is a SEC? A part of a college football league? Do you have a source for this claim?

It's a conference in college football. Kind of a grey area between a proper league and a division, although it's much closer to a European rugby or soccer league than, say, a division of the NFL. Most of the conferences have their own TV networks, too. So the SEC has their own TV network, the Pac 12 has its own TV network in addition to streaming content online. The Pac 12 Network actually shows rugby sometimes as well, because Cal (Berkeley) has a long history and a good team. As college sports aren't as big outside the US, people are usually shocked when they find out how massive they are here. The college football team I root for (support) is considered to have a small stadium because it only seats 54,000.

Coloradoan wrote:It's a conference in college football. Kind of a grey area between a proper league and a division, although it's much closer to a European rugby or soccer league than, say, a division of the NFL.

It is American football not football. Football is played by foot and spherical shape ball.What is soccer by the way?

Coloradoan wrote:It's a conference in college football. Kind of a grey area between a proper league and a division, although it's much closer to a European rugby or soccer league than, say, a division of the NFL.

It is American football not football. Football is played by foot and spherical shape ball.What is soccer by the way?

When the games originally begun they where known as Rugby Football and Association Football. That's where Soccer comes from. Football as its widely referred today is actually Assoc. Football. So Soccer is arguably the proper name for it as originally neither code had any exclusivity to the name.

Coloradoan wrote:The SEC in American college football averaged 78,720 fans per game last year, including 3 teams with over 100k average attendance and another 3 over 90k.

Interesting. What is a SEC? A part of a college football league? Do you have a source for this claim?

It's a conference in college football. Kind of a grey area between a proper league and a division, although it's much closer to a European rugby or soccer league than, say, a division of the NFL. Most of the conferences have their own TV networks, too. So the SEC has their own TV network, the Pac 12 has its own TV network in addition to streaming content online. The Pac 12 Network actually shows rugby sometimes as well, because Cal (Berkeley) has a long history and a good team. As college sports aren't as big outside the US, people are usually shocked when they find out how massive they are here. The college football team I root for (support) is considered to have a small stadium because it only seats 54,000.

Thanks, I just asked, because I generally don't believe in remarks of AF marketing, as they are really, really good in exaggereting their numbers (see: Super Bowl viewing numbers). I did know that college sports are quite big, but not that big What are the overall numbers in College football (with all this division thing going on, there is a national championship in the end, or isn't there?

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

Coloradoan wrote:It's a conference in college football. Kind of a grey area between a proper league and a division, although it's much closer to a European rugby or soccer league than, say, a division of the NFL.

It is American football not football. Football is played by foot and spherical shape ball.What is soccer by the way?

When the games originally begun they where known as Rugby Football and Association Football. That's where Soccer comes from. Football as its widely referred today is actually Assoc. Football. So Soccer is arguably the proper name for it as originally neither code had any exclusivity to the name.

Off course every football code now wants to be the true and only legit one to be just called football. Hence I stopped calling association football "football" and changed to "soccer".

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

The 6N attendances are down to one thing, and that's the fact that each of the games are "home games" in the captials of one of the participating nations. Attendances would be even higher if Ireland's stadium in Dublin weren't so relatively small.

In a typical football world cup, the vast majority of the games are between two countries very far away from the host nation (Slovenia playing Algeria in Brazil etc.).

Figaro wrote:The 6N attendances are down to one thing, and that's the fact that each of the games are "home games" in the captials of one of the participating nations. Attendances would be even higher if Ireland's stadium in Dublin weren't so relatively small.

In a typical football world cup, the vast majority of the games are between two countries very far away from the host nation (Slovenia playing Algeria in Brazil etc.).

Also the stadiums are smaller and some other points, but I think that was never questioned. I just wanted to put in relation how big the 6 nations actually are attendance-wise.But as you are here: any idea about Portugues attendances in the ENC. Two are still missing.Edit: sorry, I don't know why the combination "Italian name" + "Welsh flag" triggers my brain there, but every time I read you, Figaro, I presume you are Portuguese.

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

No, I'm not portugese, nor Italian either... just Welsh. And I can't help you with the figures for the Portugal matches I'm afraid!

Ah come on, but some effort in it

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

Coloradoan wrote:The SEC in American college football averaged 78,720 fans per game last year, including 3 teams with over 100k average attendance and another 3 over 90k.

Interesting. What is a SEC? A part of a college football league? Do you have a source for this claim?

It's a conference in college football. Kind of a grey area between a proper league and a division, although it's much closer to a European rugby or soccer league than, say, a division of the NFL. Most of the conferences have their own TV networks, too. So the SEC has their own TV network, the Pac 12 has its own TV network in addition to streaming content online. The Pac 12 Network actually shows rugby sometimes as well, because Cal (Berkeley) has a long history and a good team. As college sports aren't as big outside the US, people are usually shocked when they find out how massive they are here. The college football team I root for (support) is considered to have a small stadium because it only seats 54,000.

Thanks, I just asked, because I generally don't believe in remarks of AF marketing, as they are really, really good in exaggereting their numbers (see: Super Bowl viewing numbers). I did know that college sports are quite big, but not that big What are the overall numbers in College football (with all this division thing going on, there is a national championship in the end, or isn't there?

Overall, the average number was 44,603 out of a total of 128 teams, although about half those teams are effectively Division 1 in name only. Of the other "Power 5" conferences, the Big Ten averaged 66,008, the Big 12 averaged 57,347, the Pac-12 averaged 51,880, and ACC averaged 49,033. Many of the non-Power 5 teams in the past have gone undefeated for the entire season but not won the national championship due to their schedules being weak. There is a national championship of sorts, but from the outside it would look totally messed up. Basically there is a committee that picks what they think are the 4 best teams at the end of the regular season to play in a playoff and the winner of that playoff is the champion. In the past it was worse; they'd have a combination of a computer rankings, strength of schedule rankings and the media and coaches' rankings select 2 teams to play in a championship. And before that, there wasn't even a championship game. The media would pick their champion at the end of the year and the coaches would pick theirs. So sometimes multiple teams would claim they were the national champions for the same season. The problem is that there aren't a ton of games played between teams of different conferences and there are too many conferences for a proper playoff. So that's why I say each conference is more like its own league.

I'm not familiar with American football exaggerating attendance or viewing numbers in the US. That must be an international thing as they simply don't need to do that here. They usually say around 110 million watch the Super Bowl in the US, which is always backed up by Nielson (a company that does TV ratings) and common sense as even people not interested in the sport watch the game that day. Anyway, yeah those attendance numbers are real for the SEC. For big games those people will start doing tailgates on a Wednesday afternoon for a Saturday game. It's actually worth experiencing some time for the utter insanity.

Moving back to rugby a bit, I really hope American football doesn't catch on outside the US. It seems like it might be a bit of a competitor in Germany and Brazil. Rugby is a much better sport on and off the field.

Thinking about attendances in general, although figures of 2-3,000 may seem small, it is still amazing to think that that many people in a given city will come out and attend. I do think it's amazing that Rugby can attract that many people to attend a game in these far away places.

I just hope that the drive for new audiences isn't driven by greed, but for out of wanting to spread the love of the game.

Coloradoan wrote:Moving back to rugby a bit, I really hope American football doesn't catch on outside the US. It seems like it might be a bit of a competitor in Germany and Brazil. Rugby is a much better sport on and off the field.

Obviously not in terms of attendances and media exposure, but it is already a competitor in terms of picking players from developing countries. There are not only quite a few Pacific Islanders in NFL, but also an increasing number of Africans.

Coloradoan wrote:Moving back to rugby a bit, I really hope American football doesn't catch on outside the US. It seems like it might be a bit of a competitor in Germany and Brazil. Rugby is a much better sport on and off the field.

Obviously not in terms of attendances and media exposure, but it is already a competitor in terms of picking players from developing countries. There are not only quite a few Pacific Islanders in NFL, but also an increasing number of Africans.

Almost all of those guys who are Pacific Islander or African (usually Nigerian) are guys that grew up in the US or attended high school in the US (or American Samoa), at least for right now (there seems to be a slight trend towards finding athletes in the PIs who are massive, perhaps too massive for rugby.

American football is a huge drain on rugby talent in this country, though. The best athletes that played rugby end up in the NFL and even more take a ~5 year absence to play American football in college because they get a free education, it's glamorous (if you're on the football team in college, hot girls will basically throw themselves at you) and have that NFL dream. I think there are ~10 Americans in college football right now either not playing rugby or not playing serious rugby (a game now and then) who not only played rugby growing up but played for our age grade national teams. There must be dozens more who played rugby as well but were too focused on football to try for age grade national honors.

Hansgrohe wrote:American football stadiums and revenues are huge and 6N games are very centralized. This doesn't say much for popularity of the sport itself, the averages are somewhat inflated/deflated.

Very true. There will be 98,000 at this year's Top14 Final in Barcelona, but that doesn't mean Rugby is as popular there as the other game.

Hansgrohe wrote:American football stadiums and revenues are huge and 6N games are very centralized. This doesn't say much for popularity of the sport itself, the averages are somewhat inflated/deflated.

Very true. There will be 98,000 at this year's Top14 Final in Barcelona, but that doesn't mean Rugby is as popular there as the other game.

Funwise there you are wrong. France is probably the only EU-country were rugby is quite close to soccer and even more popular in many regions. 90% in the stadium in Barcelona will be French, most of them from the South of France and Barcelona is nearly 280km closer to let's say Toulon, than Paris is.

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.